Abandoning the Use of Abstract Formulations in Interpreting RLUIPA’s Substantial Burden Provision in Religious Land Use Cases

Abstract

“[P]robably the city’s most unfriendly and depressing piece of spiritual architecture” was how Washington Post columnist Marc Fisher described Washington, D.C.’s Third Church of Christ, Scientist in 2007. For decades, the small Christian Scientist congregation, situated two blocks from the White House, had struggled to fulfill its spiritual mission within the confines of its octagonal concrete structure. Built in 1971, the building was meant to be the permanent spiritual home of the small church, which had existed in downtown Washington, D.C. since 1918. Within ten years, the church was already looking for a new home. The building’s three windowless, sixty-foot high concrete walls proved a poor design choice for a religious assembly. The church found a number of architectural features objectionable: the hidden front entrance to the building; the reinforced concrete wall framing the courtyard; the cavernous auditorium, over twice as large as desired; the poor natural light; the lack of a steeple; and the massive exterior concrete walls. According to the church, these austere features prevented the church from expressing its religious message and from ministering to the community. Demolition, however, was not possible: in December 2007, the city designated the thirty-seven-year-old building as a historic landmark. What felt like a concrete spiritual coffin to the church was viewed as an architectural masterpiece by others in the Washington, D.C. community. The church enjoyed the distinction of having been built in the Brutalist architectural